The Sami peoples of northern Scandinavia
and the Kola Peninsula in Russia
practiced an indigenous form of shamanism until the religious repression of
shamanic practices in the mid 17th century. The runebomme, an oval frame or
bowl drum, was an important trance and divination tool of the noaidi, or Sami
shaman. Sami shamanic drums depict their mythical representation of the world. Sami
drumheads are decorated with cosmological rune symbols and drawings of heavenly
bodies, plants, animals, humans and human habitations; sometimes divided into
separate regions by horizontal or vertical lines. Sami drums are characterized
by a central sun cross with arms protruding in the four cardinal directions. The cross symbolized the sun--the source of life.
The drum is a key to the cosmology of the Samis. The figures
of the drum were a kind of cognitive map for the journey of the shaman's
ego-soul between the three levels of the universe. At the same time it was the
collective side of the drum, open to the public to be observed collectively and
interpreted publicly by the shaman to the audience who shared the same
cosmologic beliefs. The cyclic world-outlook of shamanism became manifest in
the oval shape and the heliocentric figures of the drum. It was probably used,
read and interpreted from different directions in a way that shifted annually
in accordance with the seasonal variation. To learn more read "TheShamanic Drum as Cognitive Map" by Juha Pentikäinen. This article presents
this rich iconography and ends on a comparative analysis of the "message"
painted on these drums with Finnish folklore, its mythology and, especially,
its ancient oral literature.
